More than just sexy phones: how Nokia will help sell Windows Phone 7

Unlike, oh, to pick a random example, Apple, Microsoft has only a very limited retail presence. The company has opened a handful of (high-quality and actually rather pleasant) Microsoft stores in the US, but has little direct consumer reach beyond that. For the most part, it sells its Xboxes and shrinkwrap software on the shelves of other companies' stores, with the burden of in-store promotion left up to the reseller.

For smartphones, the most important of these resellers are the mobile operators themselves. Particularly in those markets such as the US and UK, where subsidized handsets are the norm, most buyers will never look beyond the shelves of their mobile network's local store. If a smartphone isn't promoted in the store, it will struggle to sell well. If the sales staff in the store guide customers away from a particular kind of phone, it'll do even worse.

Microsoft has relatively weak relationships with the carriers. The carriers don't buy product from Microsoft. They may be selling Windows Phone devices, but those are all sourced from Samsung, HTC, and LG. That's where the strongest relationship is.

Nokia, however, has very strong carrier relationships. The company sells hundreds of millions of phones a year, and has fostered close working relationships with network operators around the globe (with the exception of the US).

Microsoft is looking to its partnership with Nokia to solve these marketing problems. And at Nokia World this week, the Finnish company did more than just reveal its good-looking handsets: it kicked off a huge marketing campaign, demonstrating the reach it has that Microsoft lacks.

Nokia's plan is for its Lumia handsets, and Windows Phone, to be unmissable. Advertisements will inundate the Web, TV, and cinema. The TV and cinema ads are big, bouncy, and brightly colored. Their tagline is "The Amazing Everyday": using your phone should be fun, easy, and exciting, making every day "amazing."

Nokia's TV advertisement

Though it's varied from market to market, Windows Phone hasn't really received this kind of saturation marketing before. In the UK, for example, TV spots have been few and far between, and most or all of them came from Microsoft, as part of its "Really?" campaign. In the US, there have been more advertisements from carriers—AT&T, for example, ran plenty of Windows Phone adverts in holiday season last year—but nothing as in-your-face as the Nokia campaign.

In-store promotion is also critical. Microsoft and Nokia need Windows Phones to be highly visible in carrier stores, and they need sales staff to push the handsets, just as they already do for iPhones and Android devices. To that end, Nokia says that it has put more phones into retailers' hands than ever before, to make sure that the staff knows the devices and like the devices. The company has also demonstrated the in-store concessions that stores will use to promote the Lumia handsets. Importantly, they feature real devices rather than (infuriating and pointless) dummy units, as well as large interactive, touchscreen displays for learning more about the phones.

Real working handsets, instead of the infuriating dummy phones that serve only to enrage putative customers

Enter the vortex

High-profile retailer locations will include big vortexy things in the windows to draw attention from passers by. Outside stores, Nokia will also be installing large arch installations into certain high-end malls to promote the phones.

Nokia says that retailers are backing the devices in a way not previously seen before, with more store space dedicated to the devices and greater levels of staff training. The company also says that carriers and retailers are making three times the level of marketing investment than they have made for prior devices.

Phones, headphones, and a touchscreen computer thingy to learn all about them

Nokia has teamed up with Monster to produce audio accessories that are gloriously colorful

On top of these conventional marketing efforts, Nokia will also be promoting a range of stunts to generate buzz and make people take notice. These include putting fake saunas in bus shelters, performing DJ sets on the street, and dressing people as live tiles. Live tiles are a major part of what makes Windows Phone a little different from its competitors, and accordingly, Nokia is making them central to the branding of its campaign. The company wants to "fill the world with tiles," so consumers in the six Lumia launch countries—UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, Spain—should expect to see a lot of squares.

The massive increase in in-store promotion will give Microsoft something it didn't really have prior to the Nokia partnership. Though LG, Samsung, and HTC all made Windows Phone hardware, none of them were fully committed to the platform; for them, it was just one among many. Nokia has put all its eggs in the Windows Phone basket, so is making a much greater effort to promote the platform and devices. The result should be far greater visibility for Windows Phone.

Perhaps the only gap in the promotion and branding is the lack of Nokia and Microsoft stores. Nokia had its own retail presence, with Nokia stores in select areas, but with the exception of a handful of locations in airports, these have been closed down over the past year, and Microsoft's stores, which already leverage the tile branding to some extent, are only found in the US. In closing its retail properties, Nokia even took the (frankly astonishing) decision to terminate its online store. As a result, the two companies are always going to be heavily dependent on carriers and resellers doing the right thing to promote the phones.